13 armed drug traffickers nabbed in North Cotabato

NORTH COTABATO, Philippines - Lawmen cornered on Thursday 13 armed drug traffickers while fleeing from Midsayap town to escape from the brunt of the government’s anti-narcotics campaign in the municipality.

The arrest of the 13 men in Barangay Nabalawag in North Cotabato’s Midsayap town was preceded by last week’s take over by authorities of the fortified enclave in the same municipality of large-scale drug dealer Mokz Masgal after a two-day ground and artillery offensive.

Superintendent Romeo Galgo, information officer of the Police Regional Office-12 in Gen. Santos City, said the 13 gunmen were arrested Thursday by policemen led by Supt. Jerson Birrey with the help of barangay folks who led them to the location of the suspects.

They voluntarily yielded when they noticed that personnel of the Midsayap police, backed by a platoon of soldiers from the Army’s 34 Infantry Battalion, had surrounded all of them and were ready to open fire if they resist.

Barangay officials said many of the soldiers were armed with M-60 7.62 and K-3 5.56 light machineguns.

Birrey and his subordinates had seized from the 13 suspects four handguns, two shoulder-fire launchers for 40 millimeter grenade projectiles, a 12 gauge shotgun, two M16 armalites, an M-14 assault rifle and a World War 2 vintage .30 caliber Garand rifle.

Investigators also recovered from three of the 13 gunmen methamphetamine hydrochloride (shabu) in sealed sachets.

Local officials said the suspects were to relocate from Midsayap to the Liguasan Delta, apparently scared by the continuing joint crackdown by the police, the Army’s 602nd Brigade, and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front on local drug rings operating in the municipality.

Combined police and Army personnel and guerillas of the MILF arrested last week 42 members of the town’s largest drug syndicate, led by Masgal, also known as Commander Madrox, whose network peddled shabu in remote barangays in Midsayap and in nearby Pikit and Aleosan towns, also in North Cotabato.

Masgal’s arrested followers are now undergoing spiritual reorientation by Islamic theologians in a government-recognized MILF camp.